There was also a case where a young teen complained to his School Counselor that his parents made him go to Church with them on Sundays. The Counselor told the young man that his parents didn't have the right to do that and when the parents went to speak to that Counselor about this...the parents were reported to Social Services and this whole thing ended up in Family Court with the Judge telling the parents they could take their child home but only if they did not make him go to Church anymore. Our children and grandchildren are being taken away from us more each year...and there are way to many parents and grandparents who aren't even aware of this and won't be until it affects them in some way.
What's with all of the meals that are served by the schools too, even on weekends? Meanwhile, the schools get to decide whether parents are feeding their kids right. How have we allowed so much of the power to be transferred from parents and families to schools and government?
@Babs Hunt I have a friend who's working in a public school setting. She and I used to be pretty aligned with regard to values, but she's become totally radicalized while working there, and unfortunately, we rarely speak these days. Another friend works in a different district that is more conservative, but I honestly don't understand how anyone can deal with the tyrannical educational systems these days. I have always required a lot of autonomy in my positions, and can't handle being micromanaged, which is how school districts are run these days. I think that's one reason so many children are having issues and being labeled. In the past, individualism was recognized and appreciated, as long as it was appropriate, of course, but these days, if one stands out, s/he is hammered down, whether through disciplinary action, peer pressure, or medication.
1972!! Not very much after I graduated: then, they were considering guards for the cafeteria. The eating place was the most dangerous place in the joint! I thought then, at 18, "ridiculous", still think that.
One of my daughters who was in the "Honors" program at her High School suddenly stopped wanting to go to school and when I asked her why she told me that she wasn't learning anything there anymore and hated going. There was one teacher she had in the Honors Program that couldn't even spell the words the correct way in the Courses she was teaching. Even when my daughter and other students reported this, they were told by the Principle, etc. that there was nothing they could do about this because the Teacher had "tenure" and so they could not fire her. The other problem that caused my daughter to lose interest in school was that even though she was in an Honors program, many of the Students did not get what was being taught, so many days the Teacher had to go over the same Lesson again and again. If the Teacher wasn't having to do this, she was having to spend her teaching time disciplining the rowdy students who stopped her teaching again and again too. Then one day my daughter came home early because there was a bomb threat called in to her school. This happened twice. So now my daughter wasn't able to learn what she was going to school for...and she now was fearful of going to school. I took her out of the Public School System that day and registered her as a Home Schooler with the School Board. She was about half way through her Junior year of High School at that time. The School Board over here will actually give you most of the books she needs to learn from (just make sure you are following what those books are teaching) and once I had everything I needed I taught her the subjects I was best in like History, etc. and her older sister (by 10 years) taught her the Math and Sciences. After a month or two of Home Schooling my daughter still didn't seem to be interested in learning anymore. I thought maybe we just weren't teaching her correctly. So I ordered an accredited Video Home Schooling Curriculum for her which cost a pretty penny. Even with that she still had no interest in learning. I admit I got upset and thought she was just being lazy, etc. So one day I told her that was it! If she didn't want to learn then she was now 17 and could just quit school and go get a job. She had always told me she wanted to go to College so what was happening with her didn't make sense to me at all...and she couldn't...or wouldn't tell me what was going on in her head either. So I told her it was up to her, she could work part time and if she still wanted to go to College then she would need to study and get her GED and then take the ACT for College Entrance. She got a part time job and then one day out of the blue, she came home told me she had gone to check about her GED and she took a test over there and passed it with flying colors! That day she had her GED without even having to study for it. Then about a month later she went and took the ACT test...and scored a 24 the very first time. She only needed a score of 17 to enter College. I know this is kind of long but I hope that's okay. What it all boiled down to is my daughter already knew all the stuff they were teaching her in the Public School System and she knew what we were trying to continue to teach her at home too. She successfully went on to College and has a B.A. and an M.A. She is a wonderful Respiratory Therapist and hopes to use her M.A. in Hospital Business Administration when her children are older. Most of today's Public School Systems are not learning institutions anymore and should be the last place in my opinion we should send our children or grandchildren.
I think many of the Honors and Gifted & Talented programs these days are the equivalent of what was the normal level of expectation back in our days. One thing it does it make the children think they are smarter than their parents, and they then look down on their parents. I believe the curricula have been adjusted to make it more difficult for parents to help their children with homework, to drive a wedge between them, and instill disrespect for the parents. Doing this makes the children more susceptible to programming in the schools, and helps those systems to instill different values than those held by their parents, which can lead to social change.
When the Honors, and Gifted, etc. Programs started out they were a good thing...and I believe a way of letting those who understood what was being taught the first time around, go on to learning the next things. The teachers who taught regular classes could spend more time going over what they were teaching until the majority of students "got it." A problem developed when the teachers with tenure were moved to these Honors and Gifted Programs even though they were not "gifted" to teach these higher Programs. There was also a problem when some students might be gifted in only one subject, etc. The subjects they weren't gifted in they struggled in and therefore many in the Class had to struggle right along with them through no fault of their own. All three of my daughters were in the Gifted and Honors, etc. Programs and there was never a problem (thank God) with any of them thinking or treating me like they were smarter than me. I've taught my daughters from the time they were little that our Creator has blessed us all with different gifts and vocations and that's part of what makes us all unique and one of a kind individuals. And that all of these gifts and vocations are equal in importance, etc. in God's eyes and should be in ours too. My oldest daughter is ten years older than her two younger sisters....and there has been a world of different in how Public Schools have changed since my oldest daughter went through the system and my other two did. Now the changes I see my grandchildren going through in their Public Schools make me wish I could win the lottery so I could sent them all to good Christian private schools. Just like our broken down Government that needs to be torn down and rebuilt...our Public Schools need to be broken down, razed, and rebuilt from the ground up.
The best, I think, is a Christian or secular private school that combines online or remote learning with hands-on teaching, which can allow students to move ahead at their own pace in the subjects that they are gifted in, or at a regular speed in subjects that don't come so easy to them. Generally, I think this is best done in a smaller school. We homeschooled our nephew for a few years, then enrolled him in a Christian school in high school, so that he could get an actual diploma, rather than a GED. While in regular school, he was not particularly motivated to do well and, in fact, would often complete the first half of a test with few or no errors, then answer the last half of the test by checking random answers, as if he either needed to prove that he could do it right if he wanted or that he got bored with tests halfway through and didn't care about such things as grades. While homeschooling him, I would do the instructional part, then let him complete his workbooks or tests in whatever amount of time he wanted to take. He soon learned that he could be done with school for the day if he just did it, or he could be stuck with it all afternoon. That worked and, at the Christian school, while he wasn't motivated by letter grades, they were able to motivate him to move ahead of others of his classmates, which is pretty much the opposite the goals of public school.
I agree. My middle daughter was able to attend one of the new Charter Schools for her last year of High School and she finished her Senior years in just a few months. Each student was instructed through computer teaching and the students could work at their own pace. I don't know how Charter Schools are now, but for my middle daughter it was the answer to our prayers back then. It isn't that our children and grandchildren don't want to learn, they all do. But "this one size fits all" teaching isn't working for them...and it shouldn't. If Private School is not affordable....Home Schooling is the next best option in my opinion.
When my son was in high school, in Long Beach, he was having a lot of trouble in Algebra. He wasn't stupid by any means, but said that he just didn't understand it, and that the teacher would give them an easy example from the book, then assign them to complete more complex answers on tests and worksheets, and that he wouldn't explain anything beyond the sample questions that were in the book. When I spoke to his teacher about it, he told me that most of his students weren't having any trouble with it. I also had trouble with algebra so I ended up buying a teacher's edition of his textbook and figuring out how to do it myself so that I could explain it to him. Then, while he didn't excel in Algebra, he passed the course.
Why a Teacher Thinks America’s Public Schools Are a Mess Although this article is based on the opinions of a teacher in the California school system in my opinion his answers to why Americas Public Schools are such a mess is right on!
I was so stunned by this post that it's taken me this long to reply to it... I do believe kids (all ages) deserve certain rights- like the right to be safe, the right to be respected as human beings- but teenagers do NOT have the right to make life-decisions, decisions that can impact for better or worse the rest of their lives. I'm wondering if individuals like you mentioned are even aware that young people are almost entirely focused on the present- a teen's brain is not yet fully developed, so it's perfectly normal for a teen to not look at what today's 'choices' might mean to their futures 10 or 20 years down the line. Plus even intelligent kids lack the maturity and experience to make life-altering decisions.
Yesterday I bought the current issue (May 2016) of Reader's Digest, and it has an article on this topic.